Graveyard Fields I

Bob and his wife suggested that this was not a good day for the parkway. It was overcast and had been drizzling, and the forecast called for rain. Not a good day for a scenic drive in the mountains, they said. They must have been thinking of blue sky and clear vistas, but it seemed to us that fog on the mountains and driving above the clouds might be fine. So we decided to go.

Graveyard Fields at mile marker 418 snuck up on us. At first, it seems to be just (just!) another overlook, but the parking area was larger than most, and when you pulled in it was clear this place was the place we were looking for.

Below us was the source of the Yellowstone Prong of the Pigeon River. And across the valley, the hillsides were lit in yellow and orange and peach and brilliant red that blended as watercolors with the lifting mist.

The forest here was completely logged in the early 1900s, leaving bald mountain tops littered with stumps that evidently resembled gravestones and gave the place its name. Subsequent fires sterilized the soil, and only now, a century later, are trees coming back where once a dark forest of Spruce and Fir stood. The color on the far hillside was from Maples large and small.

Not far from where we stood surveying this scene was a trail that descended into a tall, dark thicket of Rhododendron and led to the river's edge. Although the sky was still overcast, the drizzle and rain were gone. The trail is why we had come.

We started down.

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Graveyard Fields
Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina

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